What is USPS Presort Mailing?

For a small online business, mailing is a tedious and expensive affair. At the beginning, most businesses spend thousands of dollars to ship items before they begin to understand more efficient and affordable approaches. Presort mailing is one example of this. Presort mailing services allow you to handle shipping in a more cost-effective format. Barcodes are automatically generated by these mail presort services for a more organized, faster, and affordable mailing service. This method is most suitable for businesses that have to deal with large volumes of shipments, especially if these are concentrated within a certain delivery area.

Presort mailing is cheaper than other services. This is because by doing some of the work yourself, you can save on postage costs. But, if you can’t do this in-house, there are affordable mail presort services available. Simply put, presort means grouping mail according to zip codes. Items going to the same area can be grouped together, whether this is a town, neighborhood, state, or region. This helps to cut down the postage cost.

What Does Presorted Mail Mean?

If you understand the benefits of presorting your mail, then you might want to look into USPS presort mailing services. This courier option offers discounted rates based on the mail class, dimensions of the package, and the package weight. This service is ideal for businesses that send out about 5,000 packages each year. Since you’re sorting and grouping your mail - and generating barcodes before mailing - you can make huge savings on your postage costs each year.

If you’re struggling to understand how this works, let’s demonstrate this with an example. Imagine a scenario where you have to make a bulk shipment to subscribers or premium members of your online store. The USPS presort rates per ounce for a standard mail presort would be almost half that of normal shipping rates in this instance. USPS standard mail charges US$044 per ounce; of course, the rate goes up as your package weight increases. For example, you would be charged US$0.78 for a 3oz package.

However, you will notice a significant difference in rates with USPS presort mail. With this service, you would only be charged US$0.25 per ounce, whether you’re shipping 1oz or 3oz. Essentially, the increase in package weight does not affect the shipping rate, but it will increase your savings. By comparing the cost of normal and USPS presort rates, you can see that the cost savings are huge with mail presort.

To understand how it works, consider a scenario where you have to send bulk mail to subscribers or gold members of your store. The rates per ounce for a standard mail presort when compared to normal rates are almost half. USPS presorted standard mail charges 0.44 USD per ounce, if you increase the weight the rate also increases. For 3 ounces 0.78 USD is charged. This increase in rate when weight is increased is understandable.

There are two options in USPS Presort mailing:

• Presorted standard mail
• Presorted first class mail

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USPS Presort Standard

Standard presort mail is generally known as bulk mail. This works in a similar fashion to presorted first class mail, but with a few small differences. You need to ship at least 200 pieces to qualify for presorted standard mail. However, this is nor a priority service and there is no fixed delivery time. The company estimates delivery between 1 and 14 business days. If your package is not delivered due to a change of address, it will not be forwarded to the new address.

Despite this, the main advantage of this service is that it is 50% cheaper than the first class service. Another benefit is that it allows weights of up to 3.3oz without any increase in mailing costs. In addition, any increase in cost over this is nominal and gradual.

Non-personalized, bulk mail items that have no urgent delivery timelines - like magazines, catalogues, coupons, and advertisements - are usually sent through this mailing service.

Presorted First Class Mail

Presorted first class mailing is often used to bulk deliver items that must be received within a certain time frame. These can include things like bank statements, official documents, and bills. This mail service includes guaranteed tracking and delivery.

To use this USPS presort service, you need to ship at least 500 pieces. That’s because this is a priority service. It’s also why this service is slightly more expensive than the standard presort service. Presort first class offers discounts on a sliding scale, which means that you will save more money if you ship larger volumes.

For a 1oz package, the normal charge is US$0.44. However, presorted first class charges just US$0.36, Similarly, for a 3oz package, the normal charges at US$0.78; with first class presort, the fee is US$0.61. With these examples you can see what types of discounts you can get with presort mailing and how this can help you slash your mailing costs to the lowest rates possible.

How Much Does Presorted Mail Cost?

For USPS presort mail, rates are calculated based on the number of pieces and the weight of each piece. There is a flat rate for standard mail presort, but with first class presort, each weight class has its own discounted rate. If you use the standard service, the number of pieces you mail won’t make much difference to your overall savings. However, with the higher service, your savings can vary drastically.

For example, if you send 15,000 packages of 1oz each, the normal rate would be US$6,600. However, if you send this shipment by presort first class mail, it would only cost you US$5,400. Similarly, if you send 500 pieces of 1oz each, the standard service will cost US$220 while the first service will cost US$180. As you can see from this example, when you use the first class option, your savings rise significantly when you ship more items. For this reason, this service is best for larger volumes of mail. For smaller volumes, standard presort should be fine.

USPS Presorted first class:
Ounces: 1, 2, 3
Normal rates: US$0.44, US$0.61, US$0.78
Presort: US$0.36, US$0.48, US$0.61
Saving: US$0.12, US$0.17, US$0.17

USPS Presorted standard:
Ounces: 1, 2, 3
Normal rate: US$0.44, US$0.61, US$0.78
Presort: US$0.25, US$0.25, US$0.25
Saving: US$0.19, US$0.53, US$0.53

Save Money with USPS Presort Mailing!

Presort mail is a useful tool for reducing mailing costs for bulk shipments. By doing some of the work for the shipping company, you can make huge savings with discounted rates. By grouping your mail according to delivery area, the courier company has to do less work themselves and can pass on these saved costs to you in the form of discounts. Because of this, presort mail costs are a fraction of normal rates, especially for large volumes of mail.

Easyship partners with USPS to provide seamless shipping services. And, our solutions help you with presort mail as well. We have a vast network of warehouses and fulfillment centers around the globe. We also partner with international and local couriers throughout the world to provide round the clock services. Sign up for free to get complete information about our services.

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